And never has it been declared done by an actual Physicist would be my guess. As for the article, I am guessing the writer took Franklin's statements a bit out of context. It looks like she was talking about Particle Physics and Particle Accelerators. And her statement basically is: If this is definitely the Higgs (it isn't certain yet) and there is no indication we need anything else further to complete work on the Standard Model (there is some possibility that the Higgs discovered isn't exactly as predicted by the Standard Model), then I don't think we will build another accelerator because all of the other questions we have we still aren't sure how to approach with this methodology.

And never has it been declared done by an actual Physicist would be my guess. As for the article, I am guessing the writer took Franklin's statements a bit out of context. It looks like she was talking about Particle Physics and Particle Accelerators. And her statement basically is: If this is definitely the Higgs (it isn't certain yet) and there is no indication we need anything else further to complete work on the Standard Model (there is some possibility that the Higgs discovered isn't exactly as predicted by the Standard Model), then I don't think we will build another accelerator because all of the other questions we have we still aren't sure how to approach with this methodology.

My guess (editor's note: this guy has a social-science degree. Stock up on the Na before reading.) is that the Grand Unified Theory will start getting more attention. In addition to learning where the holes are in this new research.

I hope we find a way to send a probe to a black hole. Voyager made it a billion-plus miles in 35 years - we could fling a probe way further over the next 35.

HARIMA, JAPAN-Saying that there was no more knowledge to acquire about the physical nature of the universe, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics announced Monday that it had concluded the scientific study of matter, energy, force, and motion. "Yeah, that about does it for physics," said IUPAP member Sukekatsu Ushioda, powering down Japan's Super Photon ring particle accelerator. "All done. Math can pretty much take it from here." The world's top physicists also announced that they would celebrate the conclusion of physics by meeting at PJ's Pub later tonight for drinks.

Two Questions (as this thread might actually attract the kind of people who will know)

1) In the description of the Higg's Field they keep talking about particles moving "through" the field acquiring mass: Would that mean that a particle with no movement through the field in all directions (dimensions?) have no mass? (Potentially impossible as the expanding universe might provide all the "movement" of the field necessary - the real question I guess is does movement relative to the field provide the mass or is is a more basic interaction?

2) Is there a, oh let's say "less frivolous", site where questions similar to what I proposed above can be posted and (possibly) responded to? My degree is in Chemistry and I'm not looking for someplace to teach me quantum physics but I think even non-physics majors might occasionally come up with some interesting ideas.

Fizpez:2) Is there a, oh let's say "less frivolous", site where questions similar to what I proposed above can be posted and (possibly) responded to? My degree is in Chemistry and I'm not looking for someplace to teach me quantum physics but I think even non-physics majors might occasionally come up with some interesting ideas.

The substructure of the universe regresses infinitely towards smaller and smaller components. Behind atoms we find electrons, and behind electrons quarks. Each layer unraveled reveals new secrets, but also new mysteries.

notmtwain:What she said is that she doesn't know where the next big experiment will come from.

Well I can think of a few areas. Also the article is wrong, finding the Higgs boson only explains why certain matter has mass. There's still the issue of why the rest of it has mass. And then there's all sorts of fun other stuff about matter, like why fundamental particles fall into groups as they do. Then there's gravity. We still haven't found gravity waves though they should exist. And then there's tying gravity in with everything else. While more an issue for theoreticians there's still plenty to do on the experimental side.

Have they cured cancer and AIDS? Then I don't want to hear anything about physickers packing up and going home. Back to work, people, I'm going to need that cloned replacement liver sooner rather than later.

WhyteRaven74:Well I can think of a few areas. Also the article is wrong, finding the Higgs boson only explains why certain matter has mass. There's still the issue of why the rest of it has mass. And then there's all sorts of fun other stuff about matter, like why fundamental particles fall into groups as they do. Then there's gravity. We still haven't found gravity waves though they should exist. And then there's tying gravity in with everything else. While more an issue for theoreticians there's still plenty to do on the experimental side.

I think the issue is more that with the Higgs Boson, they had a target energy where they predicted to find it and they built the supercollider to a specific size for that purpose. Those other things may be out there, but there isn't the same type of specific experimental target where they can say "Our current equipment can't do this experiment because of XXXX, but if you build THIS, we can".

Actually if they just wanted Higgs they wouldn't need such a big collider, it's just that they want to see what else they can find and so then the bigger the better. There's a lot of stuff going on at the LHC that has nothing to do with Higgs, and much of it is happening because of how big it is.

DeltaPunch:WhyteRaven74: DeltaPunch: "supersymmetry: all very cool ideas that offer no falsifiable hypotheses"

And that isn't exactly correct either.

As a particle physicist, my mind was being blown by the general inaccuracy of all those statements listed above. ;)

Actually, question!

I'm a nanophysicist (welll, almost? Grad student, not sure if that 'counts'. Passed quals, hopefully only two years left!)

I realize you're not necessarily a theorist, but is string theory still (mostly) unfalsifiable, or, uh, is it still just pretty math wankery that should be called "string hypothesis" or "String conjecture"?

I do recall hearing there's one method that would *confirm* it (looking for black holes that are evaporating, it had something to do with the fact that if small, curled-up dimensions existed, they could alter how the black hole behaved in the very last instances of its life), the only problem being that to *look* for this would require the existence of as-of-yet-unfound 'Primordial' black holes that might have formed shortly after the big bang... since all star-based black holes won't fully evaporate for another few trillion years or so?/I might be misremembering that part.//Still get mildly frustrated when Brian Greene presents things like String Theory and alternate universes as if they've been found/confirmed, just 'cause the math works out....

And it works beautifully just so long as you keep it way the hell away from quantum mechanics.

That is only true from a theoretical standpoint. Because we do not measure space in terms of quanta, and QM lacks an analogous singularity, the maths aren't really useful across the two domains. Neither is a Theory of Everything.

It is akin to saying airplanes work perfectly well until you try to fly them underwater.

internut scholar:DeltaPunch: As a particle physicist, my mind was being blown by the general inaccuracy of all those statements listed above. ;)

As an engineer, what can we expect to be making with these new findings?

Nothing of practical value, directly from the particles themselves. However, collaborations often make a ton of progress in simulations, accelerator/beam sciences, computing, research techniques, "hard science" software, etc. E.g. a mostly German group is leading the push for analysis of particle data through a computational neural network system, (which currently most other scientists scratching their heads). I suppose some real value could come from this one day, with applications in other fields.